The mud flats twinkled with the light of a million stars above us in the darkest sky I’d ever seen. Emma knelt beside a salty tributary. It ran in a sandy rut from shore to sea, or at least to the deeper and murkier water waiting to rush back over the sand when the tide came in. A trapped fish—a tiny pollock, from its silver scales—wriggled furiously, its world suddenly narrowed to a salty but barely wet gully.

“I can’t believe you’re leaving tomorrow,” Emma said. Already the nights had turned colder—it was just September, but her purple skullcap was pulled down tight over her ears. Despite the chill, she insisted on going barefoot, as if encased in slick seal skin instead of human fragility. Her feet were pale, nearly blue. Asking her if she wanted to put her shoes back on would be met with amusement, so I let her be. If she wanted to warm up, she would. She didn’t need my anxiety heaped over her—not when we had other things to worry about.

I wasn’t used to the abrupt turn of weather or the frozen low tides. My blood ran warm, and hers—apparently—ran icy. I was wrapped in wool and denim and fleece, head to toe, and none of it helped.

“I’d like you to stay, Jeannie,” she said. “Can’t you stay?”

I was a shivering, chattering mess, and her request made it worse.

“Tourist season is over.” I tried to keep my voice from shaking. “My aunt’s lease is up at the shop, and the landlord won’t let us stay any longer.”

“It’s the ice.” Emma popped up and twirled along the seabed, hands upraised to the dark sky and toes ripping through the small stands of sea water. It was new moon, but the stars were bright enough to spotlight her dancing and dipping. The flame of her red hair bushing out of her hat made it look like a fireball tumbled along the sand.

“What about the ice?” I watched her, stuffing down a well of longing. It would do me no good to want what I couldn’t have.

“Homer Spit is so narrow,” she said, as though that explained everything. When I didn’t answer, she added, “The winds blow pretty fierce over the road and up the shoreline—and with the waves coming so high, and the weather so cold from here on out, it doesn’t take much to freeze the pipes and ice everything up. No one in town is willing to risk coming out this way. Well, no one except the fishermen—that’s why the bar at the end of the spit stays open year-round. They’ll endure anything for a beer.”

The sound of my laugh echoed off the stands of long, flat rocks. They were usually hidden underwater. The surfaces were still slick, algae clinging to the corners, refusing to let go, even for a second. I could understand the compulsion.

Emma plucked something out of the sand and slid it into her pocket. “I’ll admit, there’s not much to do in the off-season—you’d be bored. Still, we’d make our own fun. Shake things up a little.” She paused. “It the night to set your intentions, you know.”

The way she said it—intentions—it was like I’d never heard the word before. “It is?”

“It’s the new moon.” Her voice was firm. She sounded so far away. “A night for manifesting our desires.”

“You sound like those people who go to bore tide parties and the full moon festivals. My aunt says things are tourist schlock.”

The smile in Emma’s voice was clear when she said, “Some of it is. But intention-setting and manifesting are just the same as wishing or saying a prayer. And I wish for so much right now.”

“So…like going to church? Church on the beach?”

“Sure, we can think of it like that.” Her bare feet struck wet sand and puddles, and suddenly she stood tall in front of me. “I’ve learned some things—it’s not quite like church, but it’s not…I don’t know. It’s not like other things.”

I would miss this when my aunt and I left—the way Emma talked in circles and didn’t quite answer questions, yet still made me curious enough to want to know more. The way her hair looked in starlight. The way her words were so pretty in the night air. I’d be back on the east coast in a week or so, far from Alaska, and there would be no one like her.

“So what is it like then?” I asked, just to hear her speak again.

“We live with nature. We live with the sea and the salmon and the moose and the kittiwakes. The bald eagles and the otters. The whales. Or, I should say, we are allowed to live with nature. It’s different here.”

“Here as in Homer? Or here as in Alaska as a whole?”

“Homer, I think. But intention-setting came long before there were gods to worship. It’s just putting what you want out into the world and hoping it comes true. Manifesting our deepest desires.”

I smiled. “It’s a nice idea. If only prayers and wishes worked.”

Emma flipped her hair over her shoulder. “Maybe yours haven’t, but others’ wishes have come to pass. Last summer I wished for you, right here on this beach, and here you are. Maybe this is just a lucky spot. I don’t know.”

I wrinkled my nose and touched her hand. She was sweet, so sweet. “Do I have to remind you that there are tsunami warnings all up and down the spit. I know Homer has earthquakes. People die from silly accidents. That doesn’t exactly strike me as lucky.”

“Luck is what you make it. Perhaps you simply have to make the right offerings to the universe.”

“Offerings. What, like animal sacrifice?” I laughed.

Emma smiled, but she was dead serious when she said, “I’ve seen intentions specified with bird feathers—some with animals caught or hunted. It depends on what you wish for, I guess. The strength of the wish you’re manifesting.” She dipped her toe into the pool where the pollock still frantically squirmed. “This fish, for instance. We’ve been talking about wanting you to stay in Homer, and this fish has been witness. It would make a strong inclusion in our spellwork.”

“Spellwork? Isn’t that witchcraft?”

“Semantics. Spellwork is the same as prayer. It’s the same as yearning. It’s intention work.”

“You can keep saying intention this and intention that, but I doubt that fish intends on dying. Look how hard he’s working to get back to the ocean.” The pollock surged forward, eager to find its way to a larger pool of water.

Emma’s eyes sparkled. “I just don’t want you to go, Jeannie. I know I keep saying that, and so do you…that’s what I want. I want you to stay.”